Lucky Me

Thankfully I was told by the SSE meter engineer who came round to fit a "Smart" meter (one I hadn't asked for) that there wasn't enough room where the old meter was. He was surprised when I told him that I didn't want one anyway.

I gave up after 7 pages. Can't believe nobody mentioned Return to the Dark Planet. The plot was awful, the acting, where there was any, was worse and the set pieces must have cost about 50p.

It opens on a space prison where the walls were so thin one of the actors manages to tear one when his elbow bumped into it. The "electronic lock" on a cell was a casio calculator. You could tell because they hadn't even bothered to paint out the name! I gave up after about 15 minutes of it's 75.

Get one of the cases with a built in reading light. I got one of the Amazon ones and it is perfect for my needs. Protects the Kindle, the light tucks away inside the case when not required and uses the Kindle's battery.

No shit, Sherlock

in other news, eating too much chocolate make you fat and sitting at a computer incorrectly will get almost exactly the same results.

Another useless government group (with private sponsorship) trying make news out of nothing. Why were Apple and Microsoft singled out in this report? Is it because Apple sell more tablets than anyone else and Microsoft are becoming a pointless relic trying to justify their existence?

Yes I have an iPad2 - would have bought a Transformer Prime instead if it didn't have the GPS/Wifi issues.

Nah - read the last paragraph. El Reg beat you to it and your claim of inventing it first is an obvious IP theft. Please do not move from your current location - a crap team of FBI agents are en route to escort you to gitmo.

Web/Interface mockups

I have found only one mockup program that is actually any good - Balsamiq Mockups (http://balsamiq.com/products/mockups). Multi-platform so you are not restricted to Windows and has some very nice features.

Why use FAT32 anyway?

If this is what it is about, and their device is linux powered, why not use a native format like EXT3?

If it's a linux based device, it is more than capable of reading non-Microsoft patented file formats. Connect it to you PC via USB, and use it to read/write to the storage card instead of Windows accessing it directly. It should be no different than using network storage - Windows can access files on linux filservers using EXT3 without having to install drivers.

Dell sell Linux PCs?!!

From their website you wouldn't guess it. Try finding anything with Ubuntu as an option and when you finally do, then see the big "Dell recommends Windows 7" adverts plastered all over the page.

Bastards. They claim to be linux supporters, but their "support" is mainly talk and fluff pieces of PR. About time they offered Ubuntu as a real alternative to Windows, available on all if not most of their hardware.

Before anyone mentions compatibility, I refurbish Dell PCs for a living and 99.9% of the time their PCs work with Ubuntu without any issues once I've fixed them. Hell, installing Ubuntu takes anything up to 50% less time than Vista/7 on the same hardware. Even more (less?) if you include the time for installing updates. And then the Windows updates to the updates, and their updates.

Fed up with people blaming everyone but themselves

"she had affidavits blaming Rogers for ruining marriages" WTF?! Nice way to get out of accepting responsibility for her own fuck up. If anyone is dumb enough to use a phone on a consolidated bill (which they asked for!) to arrange illicit affairs, then they deserve getting screwed by their partner in divorce court.

I don't care if you are male or female - if you can't keep it in your trousers or your panties on, then you deserve everything you get/lose. Hope her (soon-to-be ex) husband gets everything and she gets nothing.

I think he hit the nail on the head

"The way you interact with them assumes you've got a keyboard and a mouse" absolutely correct. Nothing designed to run on a standard desktop computer is designed for touchscreen interaction. Windows for touchscreen is complete arse. I have yet to see a Linux shell/GUI do any better.

I love my HTC Hero, but not sure how Android or iOS would handle being able to update a spreadsheet, create a text document or program a website. Text entry on a touchscreen forces the emulation of a keyboard which interferes with the screen real-estate. Until an interface which allows you to do away with traditional text entry comes along, a keyboard and mouse will be essential for more technical or business use.

I kind of think that the drag icons, click links, etc, interface you see in Star Trek would be kinda cool, but how that would get turned into code or an email I have no idea!

@Anonymous John

IANAL but I think it is legal for an importer to reduce the odometer to the correct number of miles if the vehicle is imported from a country using kilometres instead of miles. Most just note the difference on the relevant paperwork though. For example, my car's odometer shows 36k more than it's true miles as it was imported from Japan (had @94k on the clock).

Can be a real pain when it comes to MOTs and my insurer needs reminding every time I renew that I havent managed to run up nearly 50k on a 25k policy!

In other news

@mike2R - Not quite right

If you do not tell the customer, in writing, about the 7 day cooling off period, it runs from the day the customer is made aware - even if that is 3 months after the initial purchase! You also have to state if the customer is responsible for the return postage during this period as well.

I always put a notice in with any item I ship which has been purchased over the internet stating the information required by the DSR, plus in the order confirmation email.

Haven't been stung too often by people who buy items then use the DSR to return them, thankfully.

Almost right

the DSR entitles the customer to a refund of both the cost of the item AND the initial delivery charge within the 7 day cooling off period. The seller is responsible for the return costs by default UNLESS they have stated the customer is responsible.

No administration fee is allowed if the seller is notified IN WRITING (by post or email) within 7 days starting from the day after the day the item is delivered.

Irrelevant

The underlying filesystem of a fileserver is important only to the server itself. You can have a linux fileserver using ext3 to store files and a windows client will be able to access any file allowed - the client is talking to the server, not the filesystem.

Wow. Just wow

Why do people still bother developing for this platform if that level of contempt and blatant double standards is constantly being shown by Apple? Just because the iPhone is currently the biggest Smartphone platform doesn't mean you should write for it.

If the developers leave, how long will it remain the biggest if there are no new applications?

Yoof of today, huh?

Missing the point, maybe

"...if someone has reached their required targets for the year and isn't paid their bonus..."

But the main problem is that the biggest bonuses appear to be going to the ones who caused the problems we are all having now. Why should the ones who have not performed their job properly get a bonus? They should consider themselves lucky to have a job come 1st Jan.

F@ck 'em

I'm finding it dificult to choose which side to be on - one part of me says "F@cking NIMBYs - why give them faster broadband when they obviously don't want it" while the other says "if BT get away with putting these oversized cabinets in conservation areas, you can bet that the mobile operators will be clamouring to get their radiation emitters^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H telephone masts put up in the same area."

If these bastards are complaining about slow broadband as well, then fuck 'em. Give it to someone who wants it and do not care if these boxes are the size of an elephant in bright purple with fluorescent yellow spots.

The Readius - (almost) exactly how an eBook should be

For me, an eBook reader should be like a newspaper. Well, apart from the brainless drivel content. A nice big viewable area, easily readable in ambient light. When you need to carry it, you can roll/fold it up and stick it in a pocket.

It should also be easy to update and change the content no matter what OS you are using and with a large storage capacity.

The current crop of eBook readers just haven't got the point - their screens are either small for portability, or big, for readability. But both are on inflexible screen media. Changing content if you are not using Windows based software is also a PITA - why can't they be accessible as a simple USB drive?

It has been proven that eInk can be used on a flexible surface, so why no more devices like this?

Sooo, our (UK) politicians are not so unique

I agree with him

As an Athiest I feel that having any religious figure at my funeral would be hypocritical. Mind you, there wouldn't be much left of me to have a funeral over - I'm registered as a full organ donor and looking into how to donate what's left to science.

As far as I'm concerned they can do whatever they want once I've finished with this body. I certainly wont be needing it again!

I'm short & fat

and I've been to the doctors about 1/100 of the time the skinnies at work have been. Last time I went was because I had a burst appendix about 6 years ago. Time before that was about 15 years ago for an ingrown toenail. Some of the people I work with have been 10 times in the last year alone!

The final paragraph

The final paragraph may well be the most prophetic I have ever read in el Reg. Far too often superior technology is made by the smaller, more agile developers/inventors, only to crowded out of the market by the crap tech big companies push with their marketing, lobbying clout.

Business as usual then

Microsoft make this big song and dance about how you must "activate" your copy of Windows, cram it full of DRM and tell everyone that you must buy a copy if you want to use it. Then they make the whole unique serial number activation scheme so weak that people find it easy to circumvent.

Call me cynical but it seems to me that the whole thing is designed to ensure people run their OS and no other. Same when DOS & then Windows 3.x was released - OS/2 was copy protected and cost a fair chunk of folding, DOS & Win were not. So few people actually bought DOS & Win - they just installed a copy from their mates.

Either make the activation scheme work and work properly, or get id of it altogether. Again, the only people inconvenienced are those mugs who actually part with money for it.

I was with him until now

I mean, really. This is beginning to be embarrassing. I don't like MS or their software but this is taking the piss. As long as the "Tell me more" link doesn't go on about how much your Windows experience will be retarded (if possible) by using another browser, this is close to acceptable.

They can easily tie the Windows Update service into a separate program (like Synaptics, YUM, etc) so you don't have to have IE installed.

Sloppy coding ethics

Seems to be the mentality - instead of actually fixing the problem, write code to work "around" the bug. Then write more code to work around the problems in the code which goes around the bug. Rinse, repeat.

Which is why a fresh install needs about 8 to 10 rounds of updates. An update should only need to be done once on a new install and then be completely up to date at that time.

Hahahahahahahaha!

To all the detractors out there

I'm sorry, but leaving aside the lazy aspect of it, this is a work of sheer genius! Have you looked at their website? I have and I couldn't believe it. There was something charming and vaguely childish about the whole thing.

Personally I wouldn't buy them as I prefer my eggs with the shells still slightly soft and warm from the chickens bum, but I could see the attraction for a quick snack at lunchtime.

Almost agreed with them, up to a point

If you buy a ringtone version of a track, then maybe they are right to claim royalties on the purchase price from the ringtone source (note that I am not including ones you make yourself, for your own mobile, from your previously purchased copy of a track). However, as they are claiming that it is a "public performance", they can go stuff their heads up their collective arse.

Remember the aircraft in 6th Day?

Now they would be kinda cool. Almost Transformeresque in the way they went from chopper to jet. Not sure how they would overcome the tendency to fall out of the sky as they transformed from one to the other, but I'm sure they could overcome that somehow.

How to stop change?

To all those who say "Why not just overwrite the file?" Either Lost @19:08 is correct and they are using it to cover for something else which is worse, or they could bury the graphic in a required .dll file which cannot be changed without screwing the entire system. You know, the same way they embedded bits of IE into random system files purely so it is impossible to completely remove.